Superboring seminar

today i went to a seminar. but i could have known it would be boring. it was given by an MD, and about transplantation, or how to prevent rejection of a transplanted organ, i believe kidney but im not even sure! the seminar started much too late. and there was no speaker! instead, there were cameras and a screen, and a room somewhere at the other side of boston that also was equipped with a camera and all. at first there were just some seemingly random persons there, talking about soccer and foreigners and i dont know what, and then pizza came and everyone started to eat (also such a weird thing here. why isnt it possible to have a seminar WITHOUT eating large amounts of pizza, chips, coke and other unhealthy stuff?!). at last, the speaker arrived in that room, but first ate a slice of pizza -he is in the right corner, white shirt. below is the room where i was sitting. that room was almost empty, and it was sooooo boring! during the presentation, we saw the slides, but not the presenter, who on top of this did not speak a very clear English, so besides the utter dullness of the whole presentation and slides, i had no clue about which graph he was talking (sometimes there were many on one slide). aarrrghhh! after 1 hour of this misery i just left. that is the advantage of a long-distance-presentation: you can easily walk out...!

Boston common

on sunday we were in Boston Common, a central public park in Boston. it is one of the oldest parks in the US of A, dating from 1634. however, at that time it was not a park! (so how can it be the oldest park?!), at that time cows were grazing here, but they did that too much and then there was no grass anymore... ah, and it was also used for public hangings until 1817, first on an oak (which one, it was not indicated as far as i saw), but later on a gallows (a word i just learned; if u dont know it; catch up on your wikipedia-reading!). but only in 1830, when the cows and gallows were gone, it became a true public park. in 2007, 2 teenagers were shot there, but on sunday it seemed a nice and quiet park with nice green grass, many squirrels, children, policemen on horses, and this balloonman. i observed him for a while. he was mostly just standing there, waiting till someone came by. he did not make an effort to attract children. and in a way it was so sad to see him just standing there with all those stupid balloons attached, while it was so hot! on the picture above he had just made a nice balloon-thingie for the girl, and then her father had to take care of the financial side of this balloon act...

Emergency traffic

and yes, on saturday there was yet another accident in or street, now almost in front of our house, we were just walking inside when there was a loud BANG (but not as loud as on wednesday). again the police was there very fast. with every accident, also a fire truck (but this, and previous time there were even 2) and an ambulance comes (i actually wanted a pic with all the cars there, but right at that moment my battery was of course empty). the ambulance barely stopped and then left again: it was not needed. also the large fire truck was not needed at all, and the smaller just was cleaning the street (but left the remnants on the street! instead of really removing it). all these trucks did cause a small traffic jam, but luckily not another accident.
driving here, or well, being on the street here is dangerous! you always have to be careful, everyone ignores each other and only thinks: i go first.. no matter what...

Beach ladies (2)

sorry, i just liked the 2 ladies and took quite some pics of them... i promise, this is the last here...
it was hot again, and tomorrow it will also be hot...
we realized we have accumulated a lot of stuff already.. mostly thanks to Craigslist (for anyone who wants to catch up on wikipediareading regarding Craigslist: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craigslist; you learn there f.e. that it has 20 billion page views per month; but i guess now i discovered it.. this number already has gone up significantly... ;))) ), and next week we have to move! today the last stuff we were using from the couple we are subleasing from was brought back to them, so all thats left- quite a lot, is ours....!
ah, and we also learned that parking your vehicle in the wrong direction is a violation, and costs you 20 dollars... do we also have such a weird rule in the netherlands?!

Beach ladies

we were at the beach today! but just for walking around, it was HOT! and surely too hot to bake in the sun..... these ladies however..... :)

Good bread

when pigs fly is a company that makes bread. it was named so.. because it is a way of saying something will never happen.. but it did happen! they are selling a half loaf of bread for 5 dollars!!! ok, the bread was a bit better than the usual crappy bread you can get here... but it was not sooooo good that you want to spend that much money on it...
anyways, i very much like the bag. that was how i found it in the first place... didnt know what to choose; there is such an enormous variety of bread, actually of everything in the supermarket, that you have to start somewhere with deciding what you take, right?

Traffic sign (2)

another traffic sign. here blinds are crossing.... while walking there on wednesday, we suddenly heard a loud BANG, and then nothing... at the crossing medford/school street 2 cars collided. i actually saw the car, but it all went so fast... both were total loss. the front of one car, a jeep, was totally damaged and some fluid was running out quickly. none of the drivers seemed hurt, but i can imagine it could have been very bad. many people heard the loud bang and came out to see what was going on. and the police arrived soooo quickly! within 5 minutes they were there. then a huge firetruck came as well as an ambulance (both not needed, fortunately). but by then we were home already.. no fun in watching an accident scene...

Self portrait (3)

in the ceiling mirror of the cambridge galleria mall. yup, in the foodcourt. if we go there too often, the double-sized effect of the mirror will become our actual size... cant wait to move to the apartmentcomplex with 24hr gym and pool.....

Apple floor

the floor of the apple store gets cleaned! even under the stairs... (the guy was very thorough.). wondering whether they also wipe the iPads after closing time? but according to sylvia, tests have been done demonstrating that they carry a huge amount of bacteria.. so probably not....

Photographing people

what i like most, is to take pictures of people. people i dont know, especially. people who look funny, cute, weird, or in whatever way interesting to me. and there is my problem: i do not dare taking pictures of total strangers. i am often thinking too much about it, and then the moment i wanted to capture is gone again... while in fact they most likely would not even have noticed me taking a picture. sometimes i am trying to hide that i am taking a picture, but ofcourse those always turn out crappy. asking is not an option; i surely do not want them to pose.
but here i was in front of the apple store. i was staring at those people for quite some time, taking pictures, and nobody who noticed.. all too busy with those fancy ipads... :)
ah, and there is no hand sanitizer at the entrance of the apple store. i do think this is one of the places that actually could use it. all those different people touching the same fancy apple-products... quite disgusting if you think about it!

Gloomy weather

the weather was not good this weekend! rain rain rain, greyish sky.... many clouds. this is while waiting for the bus at Lechmere. which we now have to do for only 2 more weeks, then we will move to Melrose.... will it be like the tv series? i used to watch melrose place.. ah well, i hope not, actually!

Bike gang

sitting on the couch, around 11 in the evening. saturday. suddenly a lot of music outside; and yes, there they are again: the bikers. with lots of lights.. one with a discoball (see pic). the bikes look weird.. with very high handlebars. it seems they are gathering at the house with the sign "egobama is a liar" (see post "nice neighbour"). last saturday they met up there around noon, and we heard them again around midnight! were they biking that long? first time i kind of saw them, i thought i was imagining it; it was on the same evening as when a car toppled upside down. but just now i did some googling, and yes, it is a "bike gang", called SCUL (subversive choppers urban legion). according to a blog i just found (they are not easy to find on the net!), they are a non-profit, artistic, bicycling nerd gang based in Somerville. their missions are every saturday, when they head off from a secret base (our street, apparently!) on their ships (i.e. bikes), and the "fleet's flag ship" is responsible for the loud music. the bikers are called "pilots" and us, the normal people, are "civilians". isnt that just veeerrrryyyyy weird?
and no, i am not making any of this up: http://turingcompletewasteoftime.blogspot.com/2007/09/how-i-accidentally-joined-bike-gang.html (describing the gang), and the gang's own website that is very obsure to me, and supposedly so: http://www.scul.org/skynet/index.php
i do miss my bike a lot (havent been on one since leaving the netherlands), but not that much to join this gang... :)

Some flowers

gone are the days where i would just buy some flowers... say 40 or sometimes 60 roses for 5 euros..... here they dont really just sell a bunch of flowers... oh yes, there are bouquets, here is an example. and you read it correct. its 75 dollars. 75 dollars!!! can you believe it? there was also one of 80, but it was smaller.
everytime i see someone with flowers, i think: wow, he/she must have money and does not care to spend it on flowers that last only few days (look at the roses!!), or he really has to make up for something very badly..

Shoe mess

shoe department in the target just before closing time. such a mess!
thats great here, stores are open till 10, 11, or some even 24 hrs a day.
tired now! good night... :)

Our pet

a perfect home ofcourse also needs a pet. there used to live 5 dogs in this house (2 in this apartment, which are sleeping every night on the outer sides of their owner's queen bed; yes, with the owners in the middle, but thats just an unbelievable detail), and all are/were happily shitting in the small garden around the house (yegh! every so often the upstairs girl is running down, throwing her dog in the garden until hes done so she can run up again).
ofcourse, no dog for us. instead we have a venus flytrap! yes, a carnivorous plant! its really cool, it closes its traps within 0.1 seconds. i made successive pics, where you can see the closure. its fun to play with, although im not sure the plant thinks its fun.. just put a piece of plastic between the trap, and whop! it closes! since it is inside, we have to feed it insects (luckily tim likes to do this), but we shouldnt give it hamburger; then it might suffer from indigestion....
if we take good care of it, it can get bigger and get much more traps, but they will not become huge... pfew.... :) as they are eating flies, their size is designed to catch flies and thus will not suddenly become huge and eat my finger.... but... you never know.... right?

King bed

i thought everything in the us of a is big. i thus couldnt quite understand the bed the people we are subleasing from left for us. it is so narrow! it is not very long either, even my legs notice and i dont think im that tall. up till last week i thought we were sleeping on a "queen bed". checking craigslist and furniture stores it seemed however the most common bed... so that made me wonder even more... how can all these... ummm... bigger people than me sleep on a queen?!
last week the people we are subleasing from came to get some of their furniture back, and then they told me we are sleeping on a "full bed" right now. so i catched up on my wikipedia reading and now know there are twin/single beds (for 1 person), full beds (for 1 person in my opinion; 135 cm), queen beds (a little less space than a normal 2-person dutch bed; 152 cm), king beds (essentially 2 twins; 198 cm) and californian king beds. the latter i expected to be enormous... but more reading taught me that it is in between a king and a queen. pfffffttt.
but all that reading did not turn our frustrating full (every night i wake up several times) into a king. but look at the pic: there is everything, except a mattress, to build a king, even a fancy nightstand!!!! jeeeejjj!!! another visit to craigslist yesterday; there was someone so very kind to give us their not used anymore bedframe..! so... thanks again to everyone who gave us their furniture; the couch, the bookshelf, the lamps (see pic), the huge tv, the futon (my sister will visit us in august) and now the bedframe!! :) the us of a is not that bad at all....!

Sudden storm (2)

the sudden rainstorm from yesterday still amazes me, therefore another picture. this one was taken within the same minute as the one from yesterday. as you can see, here the buildings in the background are not yet covered in clouds, and in less than a minute, it was all gone... (see yesterday)!

Sudden storm

we took the ferry from boston to charlestown to see boston from a boat. while the ferry took off, the weather turned crazy in just 2 minutes. when we left, boston was still "normal", but within seconds, clouds came trickling down, covering the buildings. it was amazing to see, and unfortunately impossible to photograph. while still standing jaw-dropped, very very heavy rain started, and we all were urged inside, but the few seconds it took to downstairs were enough to get wet entirely. in no time boston disappeared in thick clouds. we were in a floating cocoon and all there was to see was water and rain, instead of boston :(
the plan was to walk around a little in charlestown and then catch a bus back home. but... there was toooo much wind and rain, and we thus took the ferry right back (it was only $1.70). luckily that was enough time for the weather to turn a bit back to normal and we could take some more nice pics of cloudy boston...

Getting furniture

.... is supereasy in boston! i love craigslist, there is soooo much.. for free, or just a little (the red chairs perfectly fit the table, i think, and they were very cheap). and the table, as mentioned before, we got from a yardsale across the street, which are also great... every weekend its like queen's day somewhere around. i dont need to (or try not to) buy new books anymore, you find easily books in yard sales, goodwill stores, or thrift stores, and never more than a dollar... :)
then today we also got a verrrryyy nice armoire (i like the word) for almost nothing; now i finally have a place to put my underwear etc.., and a big, beautiful bookshelf for free!!! when we came to pick it up, the girl also gave us 2 lamps she did not need anymore, and they are also pretty!
so... i think by now we have our household more or less complete, and for very little money :) only very important thing that is still missing, is a good bed.... and thats not so easy here...
and when one day we leave boston... we can do a yardsale ourselves... and sell/give it very cheap to others like us! :)

Traffic sign

in several streets i saw this sign already. isnt it funny...? "slow children".
i have photographed more... its really nice they always let you know why it is you have to drive slowly... (would it help?)
so, more to come in future posts